


You Can be (King) Again

by arosethornbyanyothername



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Families of Choice, Gen, Healing, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Jason-Centric, Song Lyrics, WIP, trabble
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-27 08:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17158736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arosethornbyanyothername/pseuds/arosethornbyanyothername
Summary: Clutching his neck to stem the bleeding from where Batman threw a Batarang that sliced his neck, Jason hurried out from the building that was about to explode, dragging his tired self determinedly.Back in his shitty safe place in one of the even shitier parts of crime alley, Jason contemplates why the hell he puts up with this kind of living.His whole body aches, not to mention he couldn’t even cough let alone speak without feeling immense pain.(Here is the secret that Jason will deny to his dying breath, the pain he felt when his throat was split was nothing to the agony his soul experienced when Bruce chooses to save the Joker in the expense of Jason’s life. He thought that coming back and discovering he wasn’t avenged and was even replaced was the worst he could feel, now he knows that there is something much more painful, the fact that maybe, just maybe, he will never be able to return home.)Alternatively: In which Jason takes back control of his life, one cheesy (debatable) song at a time.





	1. Death of a Hero

**Author's Note:**

> I barely recognized him at all – Alec Benjamin, Death of a Hero

_“It's him, or me! You have to decide! Decide, NOW! DO IT! HIM OR ME! DECIDE” – Jason Todd_

* * *

 

  
When Bruce said that all he’s ever wanted to do was kill the Joker, Jason feels something a little bit like hope, but not quite, flutter in his chest. He doesn’t say anything, waiting for Bruce to finish talking; doesn’t do anything to break of the desperate script he himself created, but he starts to _hope_.

  
(Looking back to it now, he should’ve known better, _should’ve_ been smarter, **_should’ve_** been more calculative of his value to Bruce. But that would come later. Right now all that matters is a not-quite-adult yet who is asking for his father figure to look at him and _see_ him)

  
Then Bruce backtracks his previous words, telling him how he feels _(_ knowsknowsknows _)_ that if the Batman goes down that road, then there will be no turning back.

  
(Jason _knows,_ because once upon a time, he called Bruce his father)

  
However just because he knows doesn’t mean it doesn’t **_hurt_**.

  
So instead Jason asks, “Why? I'm not talking about killing Penguin or Scarecrow or Dent. I'm talking about him. Just him. And doing it because... Because he took me away from you.”

 

(If he could, Jason would spit on his past self’s naïve face. Pathetic, just pathetic.)

  
Bruce stands as unbending as always, seemingly unaffected by his barely hidden plea, “I can't. I'm sorry.”

  
_(In the end sorry doesn’t fix anything)_

  
So it’s come to this, huh? “Well, you won't have any choice.”

  
And with fervour, Jason threw a gun at Bruce, hoping against hope for a miracle.

  
(You Fool)

  
“This is what it's all been about. This! You, me, him! Now is the time you decide! If you won't kill this psychotic piece of filth, I will! If you want to stop me, you're going to have to kill me!”

  
“You know I won't...”

  
Ever the goody-two-shoes, huh? Don’t you know Bruce; don't dare a person who has nothing else left to lose.

  
(“You seemed so desperate like you might drown if someone didn't save you.” - Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha)

  
“I'm going to blow his deranged brains out! And if you want to stop it, you are going to have to shoot me, right in my face!-- It's him, or me! You have to decide! Decide, NOW! DO IT! HIM OR ME! DECIDE!”

  
Jason shouldn’t have asked that

  
(Because in the end, why would anyone even choose him?)

* * *

  
_That night I put my youth in a casket_  
_And buried it inside of me_  
_That night I saw through all the magic_  
_Now I'm a witness to the death of a hero_  
_I burned all the pictures in the attic_  
_And threw away the magazines_  
_That night I saw through all the magic_  
_And now I'm a witness to the death of a hero_

  
_The death of a hero, he couldn't be saved_  
_Now I'm cutting the grass and I'll cover his grave_  
_I'll cover his grave_  
_The death of a hero, I'm turning the page_  
_Now I'm cutting the grass and I'll cover his grave_  
_I'll cover his grave_

  
_That night I put my youth in a casket_  
_And buried it inside of me_  
_That night I saw through all the magic_  
_Now I'm a witness to the death of a hero_  
_I burned all the pictures in the attic_  
_And threw away the magazines_  
_That night I saw through all the magic_  
_And now I'm a witness to the death of a hero_

 - _Alec Benjamin, Death of a Hero_


	2. Counting Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Everything that kills me makes me feel alive – One Republic, Counting Stars_

Given the choice between killing their pseudo-child or letting said pseudo-child kill an insane criminal who has already killed the aforementioned child and a whole lot more people, most people would probably choose the former option.

 

But of course _, Jason will later think mockingly,_ of course, the Batman has to be special, has to choose the third option. Why what made you think that the _chosen one_ would be like any other person?

 

The moment just before flashed to Jason’s mind. No killing policy, huh?, sure, but you can also say that the Batman himself has more blood in his hands than your average Gotham rogue because of the indirect deaths he caused from the criminals he refuses to kill due to the screwed up moral compass he has that only works for him.

 

Bruce may stand above Gotham, but he will never be Gotham’s son.

 

He may have dedicated his life to ‘eradicating evil’, but by circumstances or something else, Bruce can never fully understand those who are the _real_ children of Gotham.

 

Those who are the poorest of the poor, the ones who never experienced even the basic right to _live_ but instead fight to survive every single day of their lives. The people who never had any money to spend, who cannot afford the luxury that the upper-class people of Gotham enjoy and squander.

 

Bruce may have seen the worst of the worst scum that Gotham has to offer, but instead, he chooses to punish them lightly, delivering at most what could be considered a slap to the wrist, and condemning the ordinary people of Gotham.

 

But back to the question to the question at hand, which option will you choose?

 

When Jason threw a gun at Bruce, hoping against hope for a miracle, he knew deep down that if Bruce chooses the Joker, something inside him would break.

 

Now, feeling blood spurt out from the wound in his neck, Jason laughs hysterically. Bruce’s morals won’t allow him to let Jason kill the Joker but it would allow him to throw a Batarang at Jason’s throat? Well if that isn’t a slap about his non-existent importance to Bruce, then Jason doesn’t know what is.

 

In the deepest part of his mind, Jason questions; _Tell me, Bruce, do you think you are saving me?_

* * *

 

_Lately I been, I been losing sleep_

_Dreaming about the things that we could be_

_But baby I been, I been prayin' hard_

_Said no more counting dollars_

_We'll be counting stars_

_Yeah, we'll be counting stars_

_I see this life_

_Like a swinging vine_

_Swing my heart across the line_

_In my faces flashing signs_

_Seek it out and ye shall find_

_The old, but I'm not that old_

_Young, but I'm not that bold_

_And I don't think the world is sold_

_I'm just doing what we're told_

_I, feel something so right_

_Doing the wrong thing_

_I, feel something so wrong_

_But doing the right thing_

_I could lie, could lie, could lie_

_Everything that kills me makes me feel alive_

_– One Republic, Counting Stars_

 


	3. I'm a Mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _That's what my therapist say_  
>  -Bebe Rexha, I’m a Mess

At the end of the day, when the world hollows you inside out, chews you really solidly and spits you back up, the only thing left to be done is to lick your wounds.

 

(Jason is damaged, far too damaged, but he is _not_ beyond repair)

 

Since the moment he has been born, life has never been kind, and it certainly wasn’t easy, not to him.

 

In many, many moments of his consciousness, more than once he’s questioned; the one universal question that everyone asks, from the hormonal pre-teens to the disillusioned teenagers, up to bitter adults: Why me?

 

(Why me? No, no, no. _Try me_.)

 

Jason had learned from early on that the world doesn’t owe you anything. It was here before he was begotten and would exist long after he is gone. So no, Jason was never one with delusions of grandeur, with dreams for change, with ambition for betterment.

 

He is so goddamn human that it hurts. He is selfish; he was never one to deny that.

 

  _Of course_ , Jason bitterly thinks, _how could he ever forget that? People who ‘cares’ for him never fails to remind him of that fact._

(He tried, he _tried so goddamn har_ d to be selfless, to conform to other’s ideas of what is right, of who he should be that he forgot his self-respect, and isn’t that a shame.)

 

Clutching his neck to stem the bleeding from where Batman threw a Batarang that sliced his neck, Jason hurried out from the building that was about to explode, dragging his tired self determinedly.

 

He remembers Sheila, his ~~mother~~  benefactor, who he irrevocably loved from the first time he saw her, who betrayed him without batting an eyelid

 

(Whom he _hateshateshates,_ hates with all his being but could never really forget)

 

He remembers the crowbar, which up until now he can’t look at without flinching, which was used to beat his body to exhaustion, to the point of breakage.

 

(But not his mind, never his mind. That would come later; after the coffin, the claustrophobia, the Lazarus pit, the rage, the emptiness, the loss of a part of himself,)

 

**_Do you know what it is like, to be unmade?_ **

****

He remembers the Joker, of course, he remembers the Joker. Even if he forgets, he imagines that the hate he reserves for the Joker would not be cast aside, would forever be imprinted in his mind.

 

(Sometimes he fears, that all the good in him died that fateful day. That the Jason that was never perfect but acceptable enough was forever buried in oblivion and the only thing that ever returned was him. The broken, unwanted, _ugly_ part. That on that day he clawed his way above ground, he came back _wrong_.)

 

Back in his shitty safe place in one of the even shitier parts of crime alley, Jason contemplates why the hell he puts up with this kind of living.

 

His whole body aches, not to mention he couldn’t even cough let alone speak without feeling immense pain.

 

(Here is the secret that he will deny to his dying breath, the pain he felt when his throat was split was nothing to the agony his soul experienced when Bruce chooses to save the Joker in the expense of Jason’s life. He thought that coming back and discovering he wasn’t avenged and was even replaced was the worst he could feel, now he knows that there is something much more painful, the fact that maybe, just maybe, he will never be able to return home.)

* * *

 

_Oh, he don't love me, he don't love me_

_He don't love me, he don't love me_

_But that's okay_

_'Cause I love me, yeah, I love me_

_Yeah, I love me_

_Yeah, I love myself anyway_

_Hey_

_Everything's gonna be alright_

_Everything's gonna be okay_

_It's gonna be a good, good, life_

_That's what my therapist say_

_Everything's gonna be alright_

_Everything's gonna be just fine_

_It's gonna be a good, good life_

_I'm a mess, I'm a loser_

_I'm a hater, I'm a user_

_I'm a mess for your love, it ain't new_

_I'm obsessed, I'm embarrassed_

_I don't trust no one around us_

_I'm a mess for your love, it ain't new_

_-Bebe Rexha, I’m a Mess_

 

 


	4. Bad Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hiraeth – a combination of the homesickness, longing, nostalgia, and yearning, for a home that you cannot return to, no longer exists, or maybe never was._

It’s not an easy realisation. The fact that he may be able to walk back into Gotham but never again go _home_ to the only place he ever felt safe and **alive** in, is one realisation he almost doesn’t want to acknowledge.

 

(Because it was not about the place, home is never just about the place, it’s the experience and memories created and felt. Jason’s heart skipped a beat when reality slapped him soundly in the face and he felt his breath stop for a moment, his chest heavy.)

 

To be truthful, in some ways Jason already knows this. Knows that things can never go back to the way it was. Beneath his strangling desperation, his delusional, manic actions, he _knows_ before he let his rage rule him that it’s already too little and too late.

 

(Knowing is different than understanding though, and Jason almost doesn’t want to understand)

 

In the shitty hellhole he is resting his tired body and even more battered soul in; Jason has no other choice but to face the grim reality.

 

Bruce might never be able to accept him, might never be able to tolerate the sight of him, at least not until he doesn’t give up the red hood.

 

(In the very distant future where Jason’s mind is already in a healthy place, he would look back to this very moment and feel something a little similar to pity for his past self. _Oh, wow. He placed himself in a position where his happiness and self-worth was dependent on someone else’s opinion_. )

 

(This Jason will not call himself pathetic; will not call himself weak, because in the never-ending process called learning and life, somewhere along the way, he learned to _forgive himself_ and that _maybe, just maybe that's on them not him._ But that would come much, much later)

 

However, giving up the Red Hood is something Jason can’t do, not yet. Because it may be hard, often times it is unforgiving, and it is always a thankless job but it is _necessary_ and it’s _his_.

 

And after losing everything he had, even if it is entirely selfish, he won’t let go of this one thing which helps him cope. Even knowing how unhealthy it is

 

_(He can’t, because if he does, he might lose himself)_

 

Jason curls up in the thin, threadbare mattress and tries to sleep.

* * *

_Where is the moment when we needed the most?_

_You kick up the leaves, and the magic is lost_

_They tell me your blue sky's faded to gray_

_They tell me your passion's gone away_

_And I don't need no carrying on_

_Stand in the line just to hit a new low_

_You're faking a smile with the coffee to go_

_You tell me your life's been way off line_

_You're falling to pieces every time_

_And I don't need no carrying on_

_'Cause you had a bad day_

_You're taking one down_

_You sing a sad song just to turn it around_

_You say you don't know_

_You tell me don't lie_

_You work at a smile, and you go for a ride_

_You had a bad day_

_The camera don't lie_

_You're coming back down, and you really don't mind_

_You had a bad day_

_You had a bad day_

                _\- Daniel Powter, Bad Day_


End file.
